Ireland & Scotland Cricket Teams Given Funding Boost

Ireland and Scotland have been given a financial helping hand by the ICC after being the first two Associate nations to receive a US$500,000 funding bonus.

The two countries will received the cash injection, which has come from the ICC’s targeted assistance and performance programme (TAPP), for the next three years and it is part of the ICC’s aim to develop greater competition below the Full Members.

Ireland have been the stand-out Associate in recent years with notable scalps at the last two World Cups by beating Pakistan in 2007 and England in 2011 and have recently stated an ambitious ten-year plan to become a Test nation.

Warren Deutrom, the Cricket Ireland chief executive, said: “We are delighted and grateful to ICC for this award which will help Cricket Ireland achieve their stated objectives. We shall be exploring in greater detail the award and terms of the grant with ICC management in order to ascertain how to prioritise the funding towards the proposals that we outlined in our applications.”

Scotland chief executive Roddy Smith said: “We are obviously delighted by today’s ICC board decisions. The additional support will enable us to enhance our national team programme over the next three years and support our young developing side in continuing their recent progress.

“Since 2009 we have been in the top three associate sides in 50-over and multi-day cricket and this fact along with our ambitious application has enabled us to be one of the first two members to be awarded TAPP funding. The hard work will start now in putting these additional plans into action.”